I snapped a few photos on the way to the train station, enjoying my first daylight view of Zermatt. Expectedly, it was picturesque, but in a different way from Chur, Switzerland. While the residents of both places are probably doing well, Zermatt, a tourist city, is probably more affluent. However, I found the architecture more boring.

This may be Zermatt’s version of a suburb. Though not sprawling and cheaply built, the uniformity reminds me of cookie-cutter developments in the US. The buildings in the central core also have a traditional wooden aesthetic. Chur’s architecture was more interesting.

I used the river as a leading line with the mid-ground houses and the mountains in the background. Despite my comments about uniformity, I’m sure living here is fantastic.

I’m sure I snapped this picture from the same place as the first one – though it looks like a crop from the first photo. I zoomed with my zoom, not with my feet. The first picture was at a 67mm equivalent, and the second at 91mm.

Without the river, the feel of the image and the neighborhood changes significantly. Cropping is a powerful technique that influences the mood of an image.

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